Calculator-builder vendors explicitly market the gate as a conversion lever — "blur or hide the total price to generate more leads"

Claim: Calculator-builder vendors explicitly position the gate as a conversion lever — instructing SMBs to blur or hide the total price to force a contact submission before reveal.

Quote: Stylish Cost Calculator: "blur or hide the total price to generate more leads."

Source: Stylish Cost Calculator https://wordpress.org/plugins/stylish-cost-calculator/

Confidence: Single-source / vendor-incentivized.

Why this matters for Candid: The pattern is real and works in some verticals, but it inverts the trust-building rationale of putting the calculator there in the first place. A customer who is forced to submit before seeing the result will substantially under-perform a self-qualified contact. See R2 — Default to a directional range, ungated, with a loud "this is a ballpark" — not a precise gated quote.